If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

If you registered recently and can not get in you may have to register again. We had to delete some users that were awaiting confirmation when we upgrade the software on June 1, 2011.

Thanks for you understanding.

New Users:Please read: As a new user you will be able to post but there are some limitations. Depending on your behavior and participation level you will soon become a fully registered user. Please hang in there and understand that this is needed to keep out spammers.

Nco saber knot ???

There is no such thing. I assume you mean the NCO sword as carried by the infantry. It's not a saber, it's a sword. It's long and pointy, but has no edge at all or curve in the blade. Neither does the musician's sword. (Aside from the balance being strange, the NCO sword is great for learning to fence, but I digress.) If you look at photos of men wearing either sword, you see it unadorned over and over again. The cavalry saber knot is made of leather, and the officer's is gold bullion. A popular private purchase and going-away present. It really speaks to the "sword as jewelry" part of the uniform. The purpose of a saber knot is to keep the sword from flying out of your hand while riding, but like shoulder scales and gorgets, I'm pretty sure that by the late 19th c. they'd lost their usefulness and were really just decoration. If you're wearing an NCO sword, you can wear it plain with no worries.

Rob Weaver
Pine River Boys, Co I, 7th Wisconsin
"We're... Christians, what read the Bible and foller what it says about lovin' your enemies and carin' for them what despitefully use you -- that is, after you've downed 'em good and hard."
-Si Klegg and His Pard Shorty

I saw a great sequence on the practical use of the saber knot in that bastion of great research, The Hitle...um, "History" Channel some years ago (this was actually interesting, believe it or not). It saves one from spraining or potentially fracturing one's dominant wrist (not a good outcome in a melee) if one successfully runs an opponent through with the blade while riding at a rapid clip. Without it, you most likely loose the saber, or if you stubbornly death grip it, hurt yourself as your mount and body goes flying by, and your right upper extremity abruptly decelerates. They demonstrated this fairly dramatically with a guy (who obviously knew what he was doing) kitted out in a Great War mounted British cavalry kit who ran a mannequin through at a full gallop. As soon as the blade was fairly in, he quit the grip with his hand, let his arm relax, and the knot jerked the saber out; he basically did a great 360-degree circle with his arm and caught the grip again.

Now, ths was probably as rare as hen's teeth in the ACW, and a skill probably relegated to professional soldiers vice volunteers (since not doing THAT right could be bad for the shoulder!), but it was neat to see, and not too difficult to see professional equestrian soldiers of a not-too-much-earlier age mastering it.

Polish hussars also suspended their sabers from the knot while charging with the lance. This put the sword in a "quick draw" position to be grabbed when the lance was shivered upon impact. However, I highly doubt any such maneuver ever happened in North America between the years 1861-1865.

Rob Weaver
Pine River Boys, Co I, 7th Wisconsin
"We're... Christians, what read the Bible and foller what it says about lovin' your enemies and carin' for them what despitefully use you -- that is, after you've downed 'em good and hard."
-Si Klegg and His Pard Shorty

Sadly for us NCO's we have no flashy stuff added to our uniform short of the sword, sash and different epaulets. As for the cav, Im sure you guys love those saber knots, wish we had something like that for our NCO swords and white dress gloves.

The issue saber knot was leather. Some soldier, somewhere probably bought or received a bullion saber knot and used it, but I think it would be a waste of money. The leather ones aren't expensive and are as useful as they're going to get.

Rob Weaver
Pine River Boys, Co I, 7th Wisconsin
"We're... Christians, what read the Bible and foller what it says about lovin' your enemies and carin' for them what despitefully use you -- that is, after you've downed 'em good and hard."
-Si Klegg and His Pard Shorty